Another psychological process that undermines contentment in modern life is inflation. Inflation is a distorted sense of who you are. Modern people have a psychological tendency to inflate like a balloon. The slang expression “he is just full of hot air” captures this experience. When inflated, we think and act as if we are more than we really are; we are filled with high expectations, sometimes even arrogance. Anything that interferes with our willful desire feels like a disappointment.
Modern life pushes us to inflate. Our progress-oriented, “bigger is better,” consumer-driven society celebrates “too-muchness.” A recent bumper sticker was succinct in expressing this attitude: “The one who ends up with the most toys wins.” The West has been busy for decades teaching the world how to inflate; in some ways this has become the essence of being American. It is hard to part with something so ingrained as our power stance.
A modern person experiences the treasures of the unconscious, and instantly his or her ego structure snatches them up and tries to run off with them. For example, something good happens, and we try to possess it, or we get arrogant, or we try to exploit it or turn it into a business. The ego thinks, “It’s mine! How can I bottle it? How can I sell it? How can I take this home?” We cling to inflations, even mistaking “highs” for contentment, but peak experiences are not contentment. What goes up must come down.
Anytime we puff ourselves up—whether to gain attention, power, status, monetary reward, or love—there is a price. Every inflation is followed by a deflation, and then the hot air balloon comes crashing down. A deflation1 is thinking and acting as if you are less than you really are, a feeling of “not-enoughness.” Deflation is displayed through negativity, withdrawal, pulling back, giving up—even shyness. You feel alienated and lonely. At the bottom of a deflation nothing in life is enough or worthwhile.
Inflations and deflations turn life into a wild ride of “too-muchness” followed by “not-enoughness.” They undermine our capacity for contentment. Contentment can be found only in the middle place, the point where you are neither inflated nor deflated. It requires that you be who you are, no more and no less.
King Lear: Sowing the Seeds of Discontent
In the story of King Lear, some of the characters inflate to dizzying heights, in a style that is very modern, and their attempts to find contentment through wealth, power, and the manipulation of external reality only lead to more suffering. We also see characters deflating to the lowest depths, leading to depression, anger, even attempted suicide. Fortunately, Shakespeare also points the way to a cure for this dilemma.
In the opening scene, Lear has a king-sized inflation. As we have observed, the monarch announces that he will apportion the kingdom out to his daughters. This is an indication, of inflation. If you have certain responsibilities, then you cannot suddenly unload those responsibilities. To be anything other than what you actually are is a distortion of reality.
Two of the daughters respond with flowery speeches. Such outpourings of admiration and affection are immediately suspect. Most of us can sense insincere flattery and buttering up; we may hear it from business associates, at a cocktail party, or even from members of our own family. This kind of inflated talk just contributes to an unreality that will create suffering. Phoniness, exaggeration, false sentimentality—these make the king puff up artificially, and they feed his discontent.
However, Lear is impressed with this phony spectacle, which tells us that inflation feeds upon inflation. When our egos get hold of some powerful energy from the unconscious, they may start to identify with that energy. Then we star acting like spoiled kings, demanding that reality be cut to fit our desires.
Jung might well have been thinking of Lear when he wrote, “An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.”
In financial markets, experts speak of the “bottom falling out.” When this happens, there is always a painful overcorrection. A similar turnabout occurs psychologically. Saturday night’s artificial high is followed by Sunday’s hangover and Monday’s blues. This is the stuff of deflation. It is like having all the air suddenly let out of your balloon.
The Value of Foolish Wisdom
In addition to the scheming and disloyal figures surrounding Lear, Shakespeare’s cast of characters includes a fool. There is an old proverb that God wanted to hide wisdom so that not everyone would indiscriminately find it. Accordingly, God decided to place it in innocent children and fools. It is hard to get wisdom out of an innocent child, and we would never think to get it out of a fool. In both cases it is fairly safe.
King Lear calls for his fool and is told that since Cordelia (Lear’s youngest daughter) has been banished from the kingdom, “the fool hath much pined away.” The fool is a key figure in the story in that he tries to provide protection against those psychological distortions that undermine contentment. He continually prods the king with the truth, trying to burst his bubble of unreality. One can learn a great deal from this. There is a bit of us that simply doesn’t buy the nonsense. The fool deflates pomposity, and he may use humor, foolish talk, or exaggeration to point out egotistical folly.
We think of a fool as the object of scorn, but if we would pay more attention to our own inner fool, we could save ourselves a lot of embarrassment. There is a natural tendency in the psyche to try to correct for extreme inflations and deflations. Jung wrote that if one is puffed up too high, it “may lead to attacks of giddiness, or to a tendency to fall downstairs, to twist one’s ankle, to stumble over steps and chairs and so on.” This is the inner fool at work.
The fool is allowed greater latitude than other members of the court. He can get by with practically anything he wants, because everyone knows that he is, after all, just a fool. The fool can tumble around without dignity, say disrespectful things, even make fun of the king. There is a little corner for foolish wisdom in everyone’s inner life.
The speech of the fool contains some wonderful advice.
He says, “Have more than thou showest, / Speak less than thou knowest, / Lend more than thou owest, / Ride more than thou goest, / Learn more than thou trowest, / Set less than thou throwest; / Leave thy drink and thy whore, / And keep in-a-door, / And thou shall have more / Than two tens to a score.”
This is foolish wisdom. The king turns round after this speech is delivered and says, “Dost thou call me fool, boy?”
“You gave away all your other titles; this one you’ve had since birth,” replies the fool. He is so bold as to call the king a fool to his face, and he gets away with it, though the king is slow to learn. He ignores the fool’s advice.
It has been said that a fool becomes a sage by letting himself be free to be a fool. A fool can learn many things yet still be a fool, but he becomes a sage when he has the humility to accept himself as he is.
The Role of Suffering
Both Lear and Gloucester suffer terribly in Shakespeare’s story. One way of interpreting Gloucester’s role in the drama is that he represents a naive acceptance of the consciousness of his time. He is not particularly good or evil. He remains loyal to the king, which has some virtue in it, but he just coasts through an unexamined life without taking responsibility for his actions. When we drift through life half-asleep, we inadvertently hurt others as well as ourselves. Many of us seem to need a deep wounding or loss before we are willing to wake up.
In Shakespeare’s story, an emissary is sent by the unholy three (Gloucester’s bastard son, Edmund, and Lear’s older daughters, Regan and Goneril) to deal with the earl of Gloucester. You will recall that Edmund wants to get rid of his father and thereby seize his power and riches. In a terrifying scene, Gloucester’s eyes are gouged out, and after he is blinded this poor man is left sitting out in the cold.
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport,” Gloucester says. This is the ultimate form of bitterness—to curse the very gods. This is how we may feel at the lowest depths of a deflation.
However, it is precisely at this point of breakdown that a breakthrough is possible. What is needed is not for the ego to give up, but for it to give up its pretensions. The deepest disappointments and sufferings in, life bring us face-to-face with the deepest mysteries. Suffering may shake us out of the stupor of a provisional life, shatter our illusions of control, throw over naive and immature attitudes, and force us to consciously consider our relationships with other people and with God.
After this horrible blinding, Gloucester’s legitimate son, Edgar, comes to comfort and aid his father. Gloucester is so overcome with pain that he doesn’t recognize the voice of his own son, and he makes a terrible request of his companion. “Take me to the edge of the cliffs of Dover,” he says, “and then stand back so that I may jump over the cliffs and end my misery.”
Edgar agrees to help Gloucester end his life, but he hopes to find some way to cure his father’s suicidal urge along the way. After journeying for a while, they arrive at the middle of a cow pasture, and young Edgar is inspired to use a bit of trickery as “shock treatment.” Edgar convinces his father that they are teetering on the edge of the steep cliff. He comments on the ships at the bottom of the cliff, noting that they appear so small that you can hardly see them. The fishermen below look like mice, Edgar says convincingly (remember, all of this is really taking place in the middle of a cow pasture).
EDGAR: Give me your hand; you are now within a foot Of the extreme verge. For all beneath the moon Would I not leap upright.
GLOUCESTER: Let go my hand.
Here, friend, ‘s another purse; in it a jewel
Well worth a poor man’s taking. Fairies and gods
Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
EDGAR: Now fare ye well, good sir.
GLOUCESTER: With all my heart.
EDGAR: Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it.
At this point in the play, Gloucester throws himself forward, thinking that he is leaping from the heights of the cliffs of Dover, and he swoons. He lands with a terrible thud at the bottom of the cow pasture. Miraculously, the shock of surviving the fall cures him. Through a symbolic sacrifice, he is transformed.
EDGAR:—Alive or dead?
Ho you, sir! Friend! Hear you, sir? Speak!—
Thus might he pass indeed. Yet he revives.
What are you, sir?
GLOUCESTER [alive and astonished]:
Away and let me die.
EDGAR: Hadst thou been aught but gossamer,
feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou’dst shivered like an egg; but thou dost
breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleedest not; speakest; art
sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.
GLOUCESTER: But have I fallen, or no?
EDGAR: From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
Look up a-height. The shrill-gorged lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.
GLOUCESTER: Alack, I have no eyes!
Transformation Comes Through a Sacrifice
Having gone through a transformative experience, it is Gloucester’s despair—not his body—that dies. Indeed, for the first time he perceives that life is a miracle when seen correctly. Enlightenment comes to him in a flash. A short time later a redeemed Gloucester repents of ever wanting to take his own life and says, “You ever gentle gods, take my breath from me. Let not my worser spirit tempt me to die before you please.”
Gloucester loses his eyes but gains inner vision. The action of this scene offers a healing balm to anyone who is caught in the despair of a deflation.
Eventually Gloucester does die, though not by his own hand. This in itself is not tragic, as death is the natural goal of life; each of us must eventually die. Shakespeare informs us that Gloucester died “of a heart burst smilingly.” After having gained access to inner vision, the earl no longer fears death; it is not a time of worry and despair because he previously died the right way—with a sacrificial act in the middle of a cow pasture. He died to his provisional, ego-centered life and was reborn in the spirit.
Sacrifice is one of the most powerful cures known for an inflation or a deflation. A sacrifice involves surrendering your conscious position; it means letting go of getting your way. There are times to push for what you want and times to let go, and it is a wise person who can differentiate between the two.
When you find yourself in an emotional mess or you have painted yourself into some corner or despair has become greater than you can bear or it’s three in the morning and you can’t sleep (someone once said that the dark night of the soul is always 3 A.M.), you must find a way to sacrifice your conscious viewpoint. Like Gloucester, you must throw yourself over a symbolic cliff of Dover, get up, dust yourself off, and arise with the potential to be a different person.
As shown by the cow pasture, this does not mean literally jumping off a cliff. The tension of modern life can become so great that at times we think the only way out is to die physically, but this is a tragic mistake. Healing and transformation come from a symbolic fall. This is an inner process, and you must not confuse the inner and outer realms.
When someone threatens suicide, it is generally the case that they have misunderstood the process they are facing and are trying to enact a sacrifice at the wrong level. Fortunately, Gloucester had Edgar to help guide him through a difficult time.
We each need an Edgar. In modern courts, this loyal character may be someone on the outside, such as a husband or wife, a companion, a good friend, a counselor, or a therapist. It is highly desirable to have people around who see and accept you as you really are instead of propping up your distortions. In fact, this may be a good definition of a true friend. This loyal character may also be an inside figure, a bit of sanity that holds inside yourself. If this is true, it will see you through the most powerful inflations and deflations that fuel discontent.
Binding the Earthly and Divine Worlds
King Lear is a particularly relevant tale for our time because it shows this cycle of inflations and deflations with high drama. If Shakespeare were alive today and he looked through the window of any home, he would quickly observe all the ingredients of a modern tragedy. The problems depicted in the royal court now pervade Main Street, and it is up to us to create our own masterpiece.
Most people today seem to think that sacrificing means giving something up, such as giving up candy at Lent or denying oneself worldly pleasures. This is how shallow our religious sense has become.
The origins of the word sacrifice reveal that its real meaning is to “make sacred or holy.” Sacrifice is not giving up something to get something else you want more. Sacrifice is the art of drawing energy from one level and reinvesting it at another level to produce a higher form of consciousness.
Sacrifice is an interior event, but it seems to be greatly aided by external rituals and ceremonies. The ancients would take their best ox, or a goat or a bird, and cut its throat to mark a sacrifice and the acceptance of God’s will. We have grown past the need to kill animals, but we have not surpassed the need for meaningful rituals and ceremonies. Many neurotic symptoms are rituals gone wrong.
When done correctly, a sacrifice is never life denying; rather, it is always life affirming. An increasing number of people have lost contact with their cultural heritage or religious tradition, but they can still use tailor-made rituals and ceremonies. To help underscore the transformation of an inner reality, you might blow out a candle, say a prayer, or write a letter and place it under your pillow. You could carve a piece of wood, draw a picture, plant a tree, prepare a special meal, or send a gift to someone in trouble. Some people will fast, meditate, or go to a quiet spot in the mountains or the desert.
The psychological law of rituals is that they should be personally meaningful and should outwardly embody some inner process. This helps us let go of a determined course of action that has collided head-on with outer reality. Properly conceived and performed, rituals and ceremonies bind together the earthly and divine worlds.
Walking the Razor’s Edge
When you allow yourself to be taken over by an inflation or a deflation, you set yourself up for a strong dose of its opposite. In Western society we value inflations, even mistaking them for contentment, and unwittingly create our own deflations. A period of thinking you are hot stuff leads to feelings of inferiority and negativity, which in turn whip up our hunger for more inflation. Many people keep this cycle going, until a midlife crisis brings the whole structure crashing down around them.
A little bit of inflation is inevitable, as our moods come and go, but in this culture we tend to push the opposites to dangerous extremes. Alternatively, a healthy life is like walking: you put your weight on your left foot, then the right foot, then the left foot, and so on. There is a natural rhythm of thinking you are a bit more than you really are, then a bit less, then a bit more, and so on. It is necessary to stop every now and then to regain your equilibrium.
Buddhists speak of the middle way and call this balancing act “walking the razor’s edge.” It is precisely that middle place, where you are neither more nor less than you are, that is the holy place. Most people in the West don’t believe that the middle point is the solution; instead we want to inflate, grab hold of emotional “highs” and force reality to go our way. But our appetite for “too-muchness” only brings us “not-enoughness” and keeps us in the painful cycle.
To realize more contentment, it is essential to begin each day by reminding yourself to be just who you are—no more and no less. The inner fool can be enormously helpful in this regard. You might try visualizing a court jester having some fun with you while speaking foolish wisdom about your inflations. A bit of humor often can help put things in perspective. However, when an inflation or a deflation has taken over, the only cure is a sacrifice. This is when you must find your own cliffs of Dover.
1Jung called this phenomenon negative inflation, which we find unnecessarily confusing. We prefer the term deflation.